


Surrender

by Mohini



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Dissociation, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 17:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: He would be wiped, he was useless, useless, the Asset could not be ill, the Asset would be frozen until he was useful again.





	

All things considered, Bucky was doing well. He startled a little more easily than he probably should have, and nights could sometimes really suck, but overall, he was functional. Steve reminded him to do things like sleep and eat and bathe in the beginning, when his brain was not a lot more than mush. Now he was pretty good at taking decent care of himself. When his stomach ached a little after dinner that night, he didn’t think much of it. Some foods still caused some indigestion, and even though beef stew usually wasn’t an issue, he felt otherwise just fine. They watched a movie before bed and Bucky downed a couple of Tylenol for the nagging headache that he had decided to blame on the loud action sequences. 

The windows were still pitch black when he woke up, a sense of vague unease clouding his awareness. He sat in the dark for a moment, trying to figure out if he had woken from a nightmare or just startled to some noise in the apartment. He was damp with sweat and over warm, his head still aching despite the painkillers from earlier. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable again, moving to the sitting room and turning on late night infomercials for ridiculous nonsense to ease the quiet that was never quite comfortable for him.

When the infomercial changed to some bizarre multipurpose cooking tool, he rubbed absently at his stomach, a gnawing ache taking hold that brought with it some acid reflux that didn’t ease off after the half dozen chalky antacids he chewed up and choked down. It was as he swallowed for the thousandth time, trying to calm the ache in his throat and the slight queasiness further down that he realized he needed the toilet, and quickly. 

Sitting hunched on the toilet, he voided painfully several times before the cramping backed off, leaving behind a renewed queasiness that was quickly turning to nausea. He flushed the toilet and sat on the edge of the tub, shivering and miserable. He both hoped that he hadn’t disturbed Steve and wished that he wasn’t alone in the too bright bathroom with his painful churning gut and thoughts that kept spiraling back to the time when harsh purgatives were a pre-cryo routine.

He leaned over the open toilet bowl as he started to feel saliva pooling rapidly in his mouth. He couldn’t seem to swallow it down fast enough, and after a moment gave in and let his mouth hand open, ropes of drool dripping from his lips. Breathing was harder and harder, and he had to take more and more shallow inhalations to keep himself from heaving. He was dizzy now, a condition that closing his eyes made infinitely worse.

“Bucky? You okay in there?” Steve called through the door, just before the nausea kicked into high gear and Bucky gripped the edges of the toilet seat, sliding from the lip of the tub to curl up around the porcelain. 

“Bucky?” Steve called again. He tried to answer, but all the came out was a long, wet burp that made everything a thousand times worse. 

Steve’s hands were on him a moment later, rubbing the space between his shoulder blades. “Don’t fight it, babe,” Steve murmured, and Bucky obeyed immediately, letting his frantic swallowing stop and just hanging there over the water, mouth wide and still dripping saliva like crazy. His stomach clenched and he gagged, squeezing his eyes shut and moaning when nothing came up despite the pain. One of Steve’s hands edged around to rest on his stomach, the warmth grounding him a bit. At some point, Bucky had shed his shirt, and he realized that he was crouched there on the bathroom floor in nothing but his boxers. 

“Damn, that’s a hell of a fever you’ve got going,” Steve told him, and Bucky whimpered. He was sweating buckets and shivering like he was half frozen, his brain foggy and disjointed. His stomach lurched again and this time a gush of warm fluid poured from his mouth. He couldn’t even get a breath in before it happened a second, third, and then fourth time. He gasped in a shallow breath then before he was heaving hard, coughing and choking on thick goo that tasted revolting and made his throat burn. 

This time when he was finished, Steve eased him away from the toilet so he could flush away the mess. Bucky lay against him, panting and exhausted. He was suddenly aware that he needed to be on the toilet again, utterly mortified when his gut clenched down and a trickle of something leaked before he could get himself upright and his boxers off. 

“Shhh, shhh, nothing I haven’t seen before, Buck. You’re alright, just sick. I’ve got you, babe,” Steve reassured him, holding him upright and retrieving the bathroom trash bin for him to hang his head over when the retching returned while he was still voiding what felt like liquid fire. 

“I’ll be good,” Bucky whispered. He knew this process, knew what was happening. He had to be clean, or he might soil the cryo chamber. The fluids used to preserve his body function made him dry heave, made his bowels clench and writhe, and this was a normal part of being prepped. No different from washing his hair and skin, just making him clean within as well. 

“Not going on the ice, Bucky,” Steve reminded him, and Bucky whimpered before gagging again into the trash bin. He hurt. Everything hurt. 

When Steve helped him to lie down on the floor after he refused to leave the bathroom, Bucky curled up in a shivering, miserable ball. Steve brought him a pillow, which he draped with a towel before covering Bucky with a sheet. He dampened a cloth and wiped his face and neck, cleaned the sickly sweat from his chest and back, all the while reminding him of the time and place. Steve slipped a thermometer into his mouth, shushing him and telling him everything would be fine. Bucky didn’t miss the muttered curse when the thing beeped, nor did he miss the rapid tapping of Steve’s fingers against the touch screen of his phone afterward.

Bucky closed his eyes and drifted, waking to his stomach in knots. He opened his mouth to call out for help, too disoriented to remember that he was lying next to the toilet, that all he needed to do was get to his knees. Instead, he vomited on the floor, curled on his side and clutching his aching stomach as tears leaked from his eyes and he whimpered in Russian. He would be wiped, he was useless, useless, the Asset could not be ill, the Asset would be frozen until he was useful again. 

A quiet voice spoke Russian to him, but it was lying. The voice told him he was not the Asset, that he was safe and that he was home. Lies. All lies. They always lied to him, to make him comply. He nodded in acknowledgement of the lies before vomiting again. 

He drifted, his fever high and his body trying to turn itself inside out. The Russian voice spoke more lies, telling him that it would pass, that someone named Bruce was coming and would give him medication. When the Bruce person came, there was a sharp jab of a hypodermic and he knew that the liar had called his handlers, that he was being sedated, that he was going to be wiped. He cried for Steve, even though he knew it wouldn’t help. 

A voice that tried to be Steve’s told him he was safe, but it lied. He let this liar hold him, let himself curl up in the embrace of the person who spoke in Steve’s voice, and tried not to think about how much everything hurt. 

He woke to a body that ached from one end to the other. There was some nausea, but not bad enough to be sick. His gut roiled, but it was empty and he knew he didn’t have anything to void just yet. He was in a bed, a towel beneath his head and someone beside him. He opened his eyes, looked up to find Natasha.

“Hey there,” she said quietly. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Home,” he replied immediately, then realized that home didn’t usually involve Natasha in his bed.

“Connecting those dots, love?” she asked him. “You dissociated. Hard. Forgot your English, forgot where you were, it got ugly. Steve called me in. His Russian sucks, by the way. You should do something about that sometime.”

“Fuck,” he cursed. 

“Pretty much. How’re you feeling?”

Bucky took a minute to think before answering. The dull sense of nausea was beginning to ramp up, and though he was still pretty sure his gut was empty, it ached fiercely. 

“Sick,” he admitted. 

“Sick as in going to vomit or sick as in probably could vomit but not right now?”

“Second one,” he told her.

“Think you can get some fluid down first?”

He nodded. She held a cup for him, slipping the straw between his lips and congratulating him when he got most of it into his stomach before he had to push it away.

“May I touch you?” Natasha asked him. It was one of the things he loved most about the tiny Russian. She knew when permission was needed and always asked before moving forward. 

“Yes,” Bucky told her tentatively. He wanted comfort, but he was starting to feel dangerously nauseous again and didn’t know how long he would be able to remain where he was. Still, the soft, warm hands that felt gingerly over his forehead and the back of his neck brought comfort.

“Still feverish, but not so bad as it was,” she commented, reaching out for something and bringing a cool, damp cloth to his face. “I am going to wash you now, only your face and neck, to cool you off a bit. It might help the queasiness a touch as well.”

“Need to be sick,” Bucky said as she wiped the sweat from his face.

A bucket was almost immediately in his lap, Natasha’s small hands steadying him, stroking his hair as her voice reminded him to relax and let it happen. He let his mouth hang open, breathing as deeply as he could until his gut seized up and the slightly sweet electrolyte solution she had given him rushed over his tongue and out of his body. He stayed very still, panting for breath until he was certain it was over before flopping back down onto the towel covered pillow. 

“May I wash you again?” Natasha asked him. He murmured what he hoped she would know was consent. The cool cloth was back and she wiped it over his face and neck, her voice quiet and soothing as she worked. A loud gurgle from his gut echoed in the room and he whimpered. There was no way he was going to be able to stand, and he was sure he was going to void in moments.

Tasha called out, her voice sharp and commanding, and he was lifted in strong, sure arms, carried to the toilet and placed upon it with seconds to spare. “Steve?” he asked, eyes closed against the too bright light in the little bathroom.

“Right here, Bucky, I’m right here,” Steve replied, and Bucky laid his head against Steve’s torso and held on as tightly as he dared, praying to anything that might hear him that this would be over soon. His gut clenched over and over, liquid pouring from him as he gasped for breath between the spasms. When it was finished, Steve carried him back to the bed, lying down with him as Natasha stretched out like a cat on the other side of him. 

“Rest, Bucky, close your eyes and rest. You’ve got us right here,” she assured him. He obeyed, eyes closing.

He drifted in and out for what seemed a long time, waking to alternating bouts of nausea and cramping. Each time, Natasha or Steve was there, caring for him, cleaning him up, and easing him back into sleep with soft words and gentle hands. When he finally opened his eyes to find that the dim light of the room didn’t make his head pound and his stomach churn, it was Natasha who was sitting in the chair next to the bed.

“Hey there,” she said quietly. “How are you doing?”

“Think the worst is over now,” he told her, his body aching and sore but otherwise okay. 

“Try for a little to drink?” 

He nodded and she helped him to sit up properly, hands over a cup with the strange electrolyte solution in it, and held his hands steady as he drank a few sips. That small effort was exhausting, and he flopped onto the pillow, breath slow and deep as he tried to fight down the flaring nausea. It passed, blessedly without the drink coming back up for once. Natasha’s hands are on him, a cool cloth wiping down his forehead and neck, the damp feeling oddly comfortable. He spared a thought to consider how strange it was to be cared for without expectations but pushed it aside, closing his eyes and easing into a restful sleep for the first time in several days.


End file.
